Issue #11

Hearing before Subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf and members of the House Commerce, Justice, State Department Subcommittee. Statements by:

• Ambassador Edward Djerejian, Chairman, Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World
• Dr. David Abshire, Member, Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World

The Brown Journal of World Affairs. “Anti-Americanism,” Vol. X, Winter/Spring, 2004, pp. 117-180. Special section with five articles; two available online.

— Hubert Vedrine. “On Anti-Americanism,” pp. 117-121. France’s former Foreign Affairs Minister distinguishes between anti-Americanism that is “critical of specific aspects of the United States or its politics” and anti-Americanism that is a “systematic rejection of the United States as a society and as a country.”

— Irwin M. Wall. “The French-American War Over Iraq,” pp. 123-139. Wall, a Visiting Scholar at NYU’s Center for European Studies, examines contrasting public attitudes in France and the U.S. over Iraq and claims in both countries to be “carriers of a universal mission of democracy.”

— Alan McPherson. “Myths of Anti-Americanism,” pp. 141-152. Howard University Professor McPherson looks at the “maturing of this ‘love/hate’ relationship between the United States and Latin America” and addresses a series of myths about anti-Americanism.

— Yongshik Bong. “Yongmi: Pragmatic Anti-Americanism in South Korea,” pp. 153-165. Bong, Freeman Post-doctoral Fellow at Wellsley College, suggests that optimistic and pessimistic views are inattentive to utilitarian elements of anti-Americanism in South Korea.

— Vladimir Shlapentokh and Joshua Woods. “The Threat of International Terrorism and the Image of the United States Abroad,” pp. 167-180. The authors, directors of the World Attitudes Project and researchers at Michigan State University, examine the relative importance of “external” factors in anti-Americanism that derive from U.S. foreign policies and actions and “internal” factors determined by psychological, cultural, or political characteristics in other nations.

James Critchlow. “Public Diplomacy During the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, (Winter 2004). A lengthy and informed review essay of Yale Richmond’s Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003. (Courtesy of Len Baldyga)

Robert M. Entman. Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy, University of Chicago Press, 2004. Communications scholar Robert Entman develops a new model of media framing and examines implications for public opinion, foreign policymaking, and the “framing” of events by political leaders. Entman develops his theories in a tapestry of cases: KAL and Iran air tragedies, Grenada, Libya, Panama, and the war in Iraq. An important new book for those teaching media and foreign policy. 
Daniel T. Kuehl and Robert E. Neilson.
“No Strategy for the Information Age,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, September 2003. In this brief article, National Defense University professors Kuehl and Neilson conclude that the Administration’s September 2002 “National Security Strategy” is lacking in three areas: critical infrastructure protection, the military dimensions of the information revolution, and public diplomacy. Not online. Copies may be obtained from Dan Kuehl at kuehld@ndu.edu.

Trudy Lieberman. “Answer the &%$#* Question!” Columbia Journalism Review, January/February 2004, pp. 40-44. Lieberman finds a journalism credibility gap born of political actors trained in sophisticated media skills and journalists who try less and less to close the gap.

Carnes Lord. The Modern Prince: What Leaders Need to Know, Yale University Press, 2003. Lord examines leadership in war and crises, diplomacy, the use of intelligence, communications, the media, public diplomacy, the role of political advisors, and strategy. Lord, a professor of strategy at the Naval War College, is a classics scholar, former NSC staffer in the Reagan Administration, and author of “In Defense of Public Diplomacy,” Commentary 77 (April 1984), pp. 42-50 and “The Past and Future of Public Diplomacy,” Orbis 42 (Winter 1998), pp. 1-23.

Louis Menand. “Masters of the Matrix: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Culture of Image,” The New Yorker, January 5, 2004, pp. 82-86. Menand takes a fresh look at Daniel Boorstin, Kenneth Boulding, and Marshall McLuhan in reviewing two recent books on political image making: David Lubin, Shooting Kennedy: JFK and the Culture of Images and David Greenberg, Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image.

David Paull Nichols. Under the Wire: How the Telegraph Changed Diplomacy, Harvard University Press, 2003. State Department historian David Nichols examines the impact of the telegraph on 19th and early 20th century diplomacy. Case studies from the War of 1812 (pre-telegraph), the Trent affair during the Civil War, and the 1917 Zimmermann telegram. Issues include the effects of increased speed on decision making and public opinion, the role of clerks in diplomacy, and how expense, garbled text, espionage, and technophobia made foreign ministries wary of telegraphy.

Peter G. Peterson.
“Privatizing U.S. Public Diplomacy,” Financial Times, January 21, 2003. Council on Foreign Relations Chairman Peterson makes his case for a Corporation for Public Diplomacy analogous to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Jeffrey Record. Bounding the Global War on Terrorism. Record, a visiting professor at the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College, argues the war on terrorism, in contrast to the war on Al-Qaeda, lacks strategic clarity, embraces unrealistic objectives, and may not be sustainable. Record examines the Bush Administration’s statement of the terrorist threat, the scope and feasibility of U.S. war aims, and the war’s political, fiscal, and military sustainability.

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Doctrine for Joint Psychological Operations, Joint Publication, 3-53, September 5, 2003. Updated doctrine and guidance for U.S. military psychological operations.

Richard Solomon and Sheryl Brown. Creating a Common Communications Culture:Interoperability and Crisis Management. Delivered to the Conference on Crisis Management and Information Technology, Helsinki, Finland, September 12, 2003. Solomon and Brown, creators of the Virtual Diplomacy Initiative at the US Institute for Peace, assess the impact of the information revolution on nation-states and subnational groups, international businesses, and multinational organizations. They conclude that, after decades of unplanned innovation, we are beginning to see purposeful efforts to channel the power in these technologies in support of good governance and effective management of international conflicts and crises.

Douglas Walton. “Enthymemes, Common Knowledge, and Plausible Inference,” Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2001. Philosopher and Fulbright scholar Douglas Walton examines plausibility claims based on nonexplicit assumptions and “scripts” as a stored body of “common knowledge” in the contexts of Aristotelian and modern philosophy. Analysts of the Bush Administration’s public case for war in Iraq, particularly implied links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, are looking at these concepts.

Douglas Walton. “What is Propaganda, and What Exactly is Wrong With It?” Public Affairs Quarterly, Volume 11, Number 4, October 1997. Walton analyzes propaganda as a type of discourse and identifies ten propaganda characteristics. He distinguishes between propaganda and deliberative discourse and examines normative and pragmatic means of evaluating arguments used as propaganda.

Michael Walzer. “Is There an America Empire,” Dissent, Fall 2003, pp. 27-31. Drawing on Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, the writing of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (Empire), and Martin Walker’s concept of “virtual empire,” Walzer urges a new understanding of hegemony that rests in part on force but more on ideas, ideologies, and compromise.

Richard Wolin. “Kant at Ground Zero,” The New Republic, February 9, 2004, pp. 25-32. In this lengthy review essay, Wolin takes a critical look at Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, edited by Giovanna Borradori (University of Chicago Press, 2003). Wolin puts Habermas and Derrida in philosophical and post 9/11 contexts and discusses their views on tolerance, discourse theory, and the extent to which “lay publics” can play a deliberative role in post-industrial societies.

Archives and Useful Tools

Carnes Lord Files, 1981-83. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Status of retired records of the NSC’s International Communications and Information Directorate and Planning and Evaluation Directorate. Includes lists of records on Radio Free Cuba, “Project Truth,” VOA editorials, USIA, Radio Marti, and NSC staff member Carnes Lord’s chron files. Information on processed records and FOIA requirements for accessing unprocessed records.

The Internet Archive. A comprehensive library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Includes the “Wayback Machine,” a free service allowing access and use of archived versions of past web pages. Users can search and view the Internet Archive’s enormous collection of web sites, dating back to 1996 and comprising over 10 billion web pages.

Murrow Briefs President Kennedy on Cuba. Audio clip from a March 13, 1963 National Security Council meeting (4:31 minutes). USIA Director Edward R. Murrow urges a message of hope in U.S. Cuba policy and argues for long term planning and radio broadcasts rather than a single speech. JFK Presidential Library collection. Text excerpts online. The full exchange can be downloaded and listened to on RealAudio.

National Security Action Memorandum No. 330 (1965). Designation of USIA Director Carl Rowan as advisor to the President on psychological and foreign public opinion aspects of the “Vietnamese situation.” NSC Memorandum, April 9, 1965 from McGeorge Bundy to Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Administrator USAID, and Director of Central Intelligence.